Do you wish more two-parters had been made for TOS?

[tim0122]

As most people here are probably aware, The Menagerie was the only two-parter produced for TOS (and that probably would've been one episode if it hadn't been for the archive footage). Do you wish TOS had experimented with the odd two-parter here and there or do you like the stand-alone, one episode stories?

 

[indycar]

I'd be fine with them as long as they were good stories and didn't feel stretched out.

 

[A beaker full of death]

Nope. There was no need for it. Episodic tv works best as... episodes.

 

[Terok Nor]

None of the episodes apart from The Menagerie felt like they needed another hour. If the material wasn't there then I'm glad it wasn't forced. Some of the 2 parters done for the spin offs could easily have been done in one hour but were stretched out for whatever reason.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I've gotten flak for bringing this up before, but I feel that TOS has its share of episodes that feel padded out to fill an hour timeslot as it is...stories that could have been told more tightly in a half-hour format.

 

[Christopher]

There didn't seem to be much interest among the TOS staff in doing 2-parters. The only reason "The Menagerie" was done that way was because the show was falling behind schedule and they needed to do two weeks' worth of material with one week's worth of shooting to catch up. They were going to have the ending of "The Naked Time" lead into "Tomorrow is Yesterday" (which is why it has that totally random time-travel ending), but then they changed their minds and kept them totally separate.

It's odd, really, given that a lot of other contemporary shows did 2-parters or even 3-parters. Even ST's sister show Mission: Impossible did six 2-parters and a 3-parter in its first four seasons (though none thereafter). So it's hard to say why ST didn't do them. Maybe it had something to do with the time it took to create the optical effects in post-production, which could delay an episode's completion by an unpredictable amount. Not to mention the fact that the opticals were farmed out to four different FX houses working concurrently. It may have been more practical from a logistics standpoint for each episode to be separate and not obligated to air in a particular order.

 

[drt]

Maybe it had something to do with the time it took to create the optical effects in post-production, which could delay an episode's completion by an unpredictable amount. Not to mention the fact that the opticals were farmed out to four different FX houses working concurrently. It may have been more practical from a logistics standpoint for each episode to be separate and not obligated to air in a particular order.

I'd bet this was a big part of it, episode completion by the optical houses seems almost random in execution compared to the end of principal photography. Even if we assume that both episodes of a two parter were done by the same house, I suppose they couldn't take the chance that a random effects issue could delay two episodes from airing.

 

[erastus25]

I've gotten flak for bringing this up before, but I feel that TOS has its share of episodes that feel padded out to fill an hour timeslot as it is...stories that could have been told more tightly in a half-hour format.

That's especially true in the 3rd season.

 

[drt]

On a similar note, I recall reading that David Gerrold's two TAS scripts were originally written to be TOS episodes, when Gerrold was asked if he had to trim stuff out for the shorter timeslot, he said that he didn't, because the pacing of the animated show was so much quicker than the live action.

 

[tomalak301]

Episodes were already 50 minutes long in length. Having two partners might had had some unnecessary padding to them. However I think an episode like Balance of Terror would have benefited from being a two parter so we learn more about the Romulus side of the conflict.

 

[Nebusj]

I'd bet this was a big part of it, episode completion by the optical houses seems almost random in execution compared to the end of principal photography. Even if we assume that both episodes of a two parter were done by the same house, I suppose they couldn't take the chance that a random effects issue could delay two episodes from airing.

Yeah, that seems likely. There are some episodes that barely have special effects, but a story big enough to be a two-parter would almost demand some spectacle. A story that's all people doing stuff in already-built rooms with practical or in-camera effects would feel really, really draggy.

 

[drt]

Episodes were already 50 minutes long in length. Having two partners might had had some unnecessary padding to them. However I think an episode like Balance of Terror would have benefited from being a two parter so we learn more about the Romulus side of the conflict.

My pick would be to expand the story around Errand of Mercy, which could have fleshed out the start of the Klingon war better in a hypothetical part one, leaving the resolution with the Organians to part two.

 

[Warped9]

I recall that originally there was to be another two-parter during the first season where what we now know as "The Naked Time" was to be Part 1 and what became "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" was to be Part 2. Some conflict arose that prevented both stories from being ready at the same time so they decided to shoot them as separate stories.

 

[Christopher]

^Yes, I mentioned that above in post #6. I believe it was Roddenberry's decision to avoid 2-parters and to rewrite the ending of "The Naked Time." (Although I wish he'd written out the time travel part altogether. It's totally pointless as it is.)

 

[tomalak301]

^Yes, I mentioned that above in post #6. I believe it was Roddenberry's decision to avoid 2-parters and to rewrite the ending of "The Naked Time." (Although I wish he'd written out the time travel part altogether. It's totally pointless as it is.)

After having just seen Naked Time, that time travel aspect of the episode came out of nowhere. I could see that two parter idea thought and wonder what could have been.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

In "The Naked Time," Spock mentions "a theoretical relationship between time and antimatter" as forming the basis of the cold start intermix formula that they use. In the real world, theoretically antimatter is matter traveling backwards in time. In light of that, I always thought that the Enterprise traveling backwards in time when they did the cold restart was a nice touch that didn't seem to come out of nowhere at all. It all made me suspect that the author (John D. F. Black) was familiar with the real-world theoretical relationship, or had read about it.

 

[Christopher]

I could see that two parter idea thought and wonder what could have been.

Well, it probably would've been pretty much the same episodes we got, just with a slightly different, more cliffhangery ending to "The Naked Time" and a slightly different beginning to "Tomorrow is Yesterday." It wasn't really a 2-parter per se, more just the sort of thing Lost in Space did (or that Batman tried to do clumsily in its third season) where the closing scenes of one episode would set up the next episode. Indeed, the fact that it was an LiS trope may have been part of why Roddenberry didn't want ST to do it.

 

[Maurice]

On a similar note, I recall reading that David Gerrold's two TAS scripts were originally written to be TOS episodes, when Gerrold was asked if he had to trim stuff out for the shorter timeslot, he said that he didn't, because the pacing of the animated show was so much quicker than the live action.

He's wrong. The pacing on TAS was glacial. You could not possibly even do his original Tribbles in a half hour.

Yeah, that seems likely. There are some episodes that barely have special effects, but a story big enough to be a two-parter would almost demand some spectacle. A story that's all people doing stuff in already-built rooms with practical or in-camera effects would feel really, really draggy.

I don't agree with that. Your post appears to conflate special effects and spectacle. Yes, Star Trek was action-adventure, but one can have plenty of action and even spectacle w/o VFX work.

 

[erastus25]

He's wrong. The pacing on TAS was glacial. You could not possibly even do his original Tribbles in a half hour.

Oh man...the pacing in TAS. It's soooo slow. And you can really tell the actors were not in the same room when recording their lines. As great as it is to have those stories, and as great as some of those stories were, the execution really left something to be desired.

I remember reading a fact check about Gerrold's statement (maybe Harvey did it for his blog?) and it turned out that the even the longest animated scripts had far fewer pages than the live action scripts.

 

[Maurice]

Might've been a post of mine. The one TAS script I saw was 35 pages, and the shortest TOS script I've seen is just shy of 60, and the longest are over 70.